Historically, Berlin is a new arrival on the scene of major European cities. When the former Prussian capital became the seat of power of the new German Empire in 1871, it was taunted as the "Parvenu City" by more established European capitals; Berliners took the name with pride, and a taste of the slightly subversive or radical has stayed with the city for most of its existence.
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Nazi rule and the following partition destroyed much of Berlin; today, the city is a European centre for the arts and science as well as a gigantic museum for the history and the main ideologies of the 20th century. Visiting the Hansaviertel and the Frankfurter Allee is a hand-on lesson in architectural/ideological history. The Hansaviertel, constructed in 1957 by architects of the international avant-garde, was testimony to West Germany's re-arrival in the democratic world; the Karl-Marx-Allee was constructed at roughly the same time in the imperial Stalinist style, ideal for parades.
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